Page 54 of Cackle

I laugh. “Yeah, your hut.”

“Oh, I’m not being funny,” she says. “Remember that hut in the woods? I used to live there! I’ve been in the house for—I don’t know—only about ninety years? The man who built it, a terribly arrogant railroad tycoon, outright stole my land. He did not much care for me bringing this to his attention. He did not much care for me. But as I’ve said to you before, things have a way of working themselves out.”

I decide not to ask how exactly things worked themselves out.

“No one bothers me anymore, really,” she says. “They know better.”

Not going to ask any follow-ups about that, either.

“Oh, pet! I meant to tell you! The pool is ready for you. You should come over this weekend and have a swim. I was thinking I’d make goulash. Do you like goulash?”

“Never had it,” I say.

“Settles it, then. Will you come tomorrow? Are you busy?”

“No,” I say. “Not busy.”

“Good! It’ll be fun,” she says. “I can’t eat any more of this cake.”

She takes another bite.

She’s so endearing. So thoughtful and generous and beautiful . . . I mean, so what if she just so happens to be able to control spiders and curse obnoxious teenagers? So what if she dabbles in some dark magic and is over a hundred years old? I like her, and she likes me. She’s my friend.

It’s hard to make new friends, especially as you get older.

I need her.

“You could sleep over again, of course. If you like.”

I flash back to the guest room, to the way the bed canopy sagged under the weight of something. To the face in the mirror.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything,” she says. “I’m an open book.”

“Is your house haunted?”

She sets the cake down on the coffee table and reaches for the bottle of rum.

“No,” she says. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what the rules are.”

“Rules?”

“Like, if you can make spiders do stuff . . . if you’re . . . different, what else is different? What else don’t I know about?”

She tilts her head to the side, confused. “I’m not sure what you mean, darling.”

“Are there ghosts? Vampires? Werewolves? Like, what else is out there?”

She takes a swig of rum and pats me on the leg. “You have nothing to fear.”

“Sophie,” I say, “that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” she asks, passing me the bottle. “Trust me.”

“So your house isn’t haunted?”